Journalism's David and Goliath story

Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller both embraced hard work and the value of careful analysis.

"Like Rockefeller, Tarbell grounded her decision-making in hard evidence, not in emotionalism," Steve Weinberg writes in Taking on the Trust.

The clash between these two strong people, Weinberg writes, changed journalism and American business.

Tarbell, born in 1857, was raised in the nation's first oil region, northwestern Pennsylvania. In the 1850s, kerosene was becoming the preferred illuminant, and Titusville, Pa., became the first oil boomtown. Ida's father, Franklin Tarbell, got in on the action with a barrel-making business.

Rockefeller, born in 1839 to a con-man father and a morally strict mother, made a fortune in oil by seizing opportunity and squashing competition. He insisted on quality and efficiency, attention to detail and partnering with the right people. But a good part of the Cleveland baron's riches flowed from fraud, bribery and cutthroat tactics. At the height of his wealth and reach, Standard Oil and its subsidiaries controlled virtually every part of the U.S. oil business.

Ida launched a life in writing, first at The Chatauquan magazine and then at the muckraking McClure's magazine in 1894. Earlier, Tarbell traveled to France, where she learned about fact-gathering at the Sorbonne.

Tarbell "learned research methods practiced by the best historians in France," Weinberg writes. "She heard how to puzzle through gaps in the historical record. She developed tools to weigh contradictory evidence. Accuracy checking became de rigueur."

An investigative reporter and professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, Weinberg details Tarbell's pioneering approach to storytelling, including her extensive use of documents and ability to gather knowledgeable sources. She had the gifts that would come to be recognized in the best investigative reporters, including a dogged approach, a reliance on facts and the courage to confront the powerful.

She began researching a series on Standard Oil for McClure's in 1900. The company was an obvious target in what came to be known as the Progressive Era, a time, Weinberg writes, when politicians, journalists and advocacy groups "hoped to alter the national ethos to minimize inequalities among individuals."

Tarbell's articles revealed that Rockefeller and his partners conspired with the railroads for preferential treatment; bribed government officials; manipulated prices; established subsidiaries under false pretenses; launched false rumors about the inferior quality of competitors' products; and maintained an extensive spy network to track rivals. The effect was a stranglehold on the hugely profitable oil refining business.

"We are a commercial people," Tarbell wrote. "We cannot boast of our arts, our crafts, our cultivation; our boast is in the wealth we produce. As a consequence, business success is sanctified and, practically, any methods which achieve it are justified by a larger and larger class."

The U.S. attorney general filed an anti-trust suit against Standard Oil in 1906. In 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court's decision against the oil giant. Although Rockefeller persistently denied any wrongdoing, his great company was dissolved. The different parts continued to dominate the oil business, but Tarbell had shined a light that inspired a new breed of journalists.